After a whole lot of back and forth between Ecko clothing founder Marc Ecko, City Hall, and fuckface city councilman Peter Vallone, The Getting Up Block Party is gonna happen tomorrow at 12 noon. The Block party is a promotion for Ecko’s new video game, Getting Up – Contents Under Pressure, in which players basically get to bomb trains and walls in a fictional city while uncovering corrupt politicians and city leaders. Did I mention you get to write Grafitti? Man, I woulda never left my house if this game would have came out like 10 years ago. So basically they planned this big block party on 22nd street which will feature live DJ’s spinning and some of New York’s most legendary writers doing pieces on replicas of NYC trains. Not surprisingly Bloomberg and Vallone had a fit and tried to shutdown the whole party, here are some of their statements:

Vallone: "Holding graffiti demonstrations is like having a demonstration of a thug pickpocketing a wallet or stealing a purse"

Bloomberg: "This is not really art or expression, this is, let’s be honest about what it is: It’s trying to encourage people to do something that’s not in anybody’s interest"

A couple of days later the party permit was revoked by the city and it looked like it was a wrap for the event. Then Marc Ecko stood up and did what many say can’t be done: fight City Hall. Ecko filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg and today a federal judge upheld the permit stating:

"By the same token, presumably, a street performance of ‘Hamlet’ would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder"

That’s what I’m saying, a pro-graf judge! He even went on to declare the city’s actions as unconstitutional and a threat to the First Amendement. What’s better than a bunch of graf writers beating the system and getting backed up by a fucking judge! On another note, world famous grafitti writer Cope2 was reportedly jailed on harrasement charges after calling Vallone’s voice mail and cursing him out. I love it.

So I plan on swing by this little shindig tomorrow with a camera and getting some flix, and if I do, you’ll see ‘em here.

Posted by eskay
on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005 at 5:29 pm
under:News, Sports